The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-18
GEORGE M. PULLMAN.
How He Raised Chicago Buildings on
Stilts-His First Palace Car.
From the CHICAGO Mall.

Stilts-His First Palace Car.
From the Chicago Mail.
Early in the sixties the raising of the
! level of Chicago had put all the principal
| downtown streets half-dozen feet above
the basement windows of houses and stores.
| The owners, of course, set about restoring
the old order of things, and the method
which most of them were adopting was to
SO cut the timbers that the basement floor
ing could be slipped up to where the second
story belonged, the second story floor to the
third, and third to the roof The result
was that the four-story buildings became
SIMPLY three-story ones, and so on down.
IullmGn stood at the corner of
Randolph and Dearborn streets watching
TINS sort of operation in progress on one OF
the old brick buildings. why don't YOU
he said to the owner. raise the building
from the ground! Then it wouldn't be nee
essary to tear the inside of the building to
pieces" The owner turned to Pullman and
remarked that it might have escaped his no
hce that the building was brick. not wood.
| mo, the answer was, sit was plain the
house was brick and old, but it was just as
plain that the whole structure could be
raised from the ground without breaking any
! or the plastering and without disturbing
even the furniture
| This conversation is historical 1t turned
out to be of very great consequence to a
|
Der OF people familiar with all its details
The real estate owner told George NJ. Pull
man that if he could raise house in that
| way, and could guarantee that it would be
done safely, he would like to have him
raise the brick drug store that stood on the
corner directly opposite where the Borden
| block now is. How much would it
| cost The house raiser-Pullmpn
was in that business then-Said he'd
take the contract for just what it cost
| by the old-fashioned method. There
were chickering's, naturally; but final
ly about 100 men one morning
surrounded the brick drug store and began
to put In place forest of jack-screws-Old
citizens say that Ghere We're thousand of
them. These had been bought, some of
them, and borrowed. All the screws in
town were on that lot, and hundreds that
had been brought from down East A. B.
Pullman, a brother, stood at one corner and
the millionaire president of the palace car
company at another. As George NJ. Pull
man raised his arm, A. B. Pullman raised
his and then each man gave one turn to the
three or four Jack-screws that were under
| his charge. Half Chicago was on the spot
After three or four turns had been given,
| and while the crowd was waiting to see the
| structure start, George NJ. Pullman waved
his arms, A. b. Pullman waved his, and the
| men dropped their crowbars for the day
The crowd went away wondering The
| building, which had showed the first day
no sign of bullying, the next morning was
clear of the ground by an inch or more.
The tension of the timbers had worked
everything clear of the ground over night
| The crowd, when it came down the next
day, was amazed when it saw that the brick
! building stock on the iackscrews; that even
the bottles on the drug store shelves
had not been disturbed and that
customers could come and go by way of
| stairway that had been built. The building
went up and up, and the foundation was
built under it, and the whole of Chicago
was at Pullman's feet. He raised whole
block of buildings soon after that strung
along on Lake street from La Sale to Clark,
and that comprised all sorts of structures,
some big and some little, some joined by
party walls and some clear of their neigh
bors Then he raised the great fremont
House, a structure as large as 1t is now, big
enough to hold 500 people, and built of MAS
sive granite That showed what George
NJ. Pullman could do in the way of house
raising.
About this time a keen Yankee had gotten
| permission of the Michigan Southern rail
road to go through its night cars with
head-rest, which he offered for Soc, to
| screw on the back of passengers seat 1t
| took very well, and the Yankee found that
a good many people were willing to pay sim
| ply for the luxury of head-rest. George NJ.
Pullman saw the thing, settled at once in
his mind that it was thing that was good,
| and bought out the Yankee
| and his patents. He had for
time the same privileges that the original
Yankee had, and then asked that an old car
be set aside for him to make experiments
with. The Pullman Palace Car Company,
whose $50 200, 600 stock is selling above $50,
and whose surplus is now figured at $40, OOO,-
600, shows how well Pullman worked up the
idea of that head-rest